The rise, fall, and rise again of Honda engineering

The RLX means Honda might have its mojo back.

For years, Honda was an outlier. Maybe it's a legacy thing—founder Soichiro Honda was famously a nonconformist—but the company long prided itself on producing interesting cars that solved problems in new and ingenious ways. In the Honda CRX, you had a sports car that was also a packaging masterstroke and a fuel-economy titan. With the original Acura NSX, the company applied mass-market lessons to a niche-market supercar and taught Ferrari a lesson. Preludes offered optional four-wheel steering. The original Insight hybrid was a pared-down marvel. From the brand's earliest days, there was an apparent simplicity and delicacy to its work, even if the products themselves weren't particularly simple or delicate. The goal wasn't to change the industry, but it often happened.

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Sound hyperbolic? The car world has been rocked by things that Honda either invented or figured out how to make work. Stuff like prechamber stratified-charge combustion (CVCC), variable valve timing and lift using switchable cam profiles (VTEC), torque vectoring (SH-AWD), and one of the first production hybrid systems (IMA). Few among us knew what those initials stood for and fewer still could comprehend how those systems worked. The beauty was that normal people didn't need to—they just loved that their cars were quicker and more efficient than expected and never broke.

But there have been no awe-inspiring moments since that first Insight was launched in 1999. The Accord just kind of chugged along and went American Big; the Civic felt increasingly ordinary. The S2000 roadster was great to drive but didn't break new ground. With fuel economy the industry's single biggest concern, you'd think Honda would at least have the world's most impressive hybrids.

A few years ago, Honda's luxury division had a problem: It needed an efficient all-wheel-drive system for its new flagship, the 2014 Acura RLX. The RLX is offered as a front-driver, but selling a luxury car in America these days requires at least the option of four-wheel traction. The RLX's predecessor, the RL, had a fantastic all-wheel-drive system (SH-AWD) that featured rear-axle torque vectoring. But it was inefficient and heavy, and its presence meant a further fuel-economy penalty.

Here's the genius: Instead of abandoning the all-wheel-drive system, Honda reinvented it. The all-wheel-drive RLX Sport Hybrid model has one electric motor for each rear wheel, with the key being that each motor can operate independently. Imagine a car's right rear wheel being propelled forward while the left rear wheel tries to turn backward; the car would veer to the left. This is the essence of torque vectoring, and it makes big cars feel supernaturally agile. The RLX accomplishes the job purely with electric motors. (Fun fact: Even the million-dollar Porsche 918 can't do this; that car uses a single electric drive motor for both front wheels.)

The RLX's system can add or subtract more than 500 lb-ft of torque to or from each wheel. Powerful! The regen from one side's motor can be sent to power the other. Efficient! Yet the whole rear power-transfer unit weighs only 130 lbs. That would be a small weight penalty for all-wheel drive, let alone a hybrid all-wheel-drive system that saves a ton of fuel. ("A ton" here equates to a 40 percent increase in city fuel economy—28 mpg vs. 20—compared with the non-hybrid, front-drive model. Economical!)

This is far from insignificant. And in true old-school form, Honda's engineers figured out other clever uses for those rear motors. For example, the motors are all that gets the RLX moving from a stop. Doing so means the Acura's V6 and dual-clutch automatic don't have to pitch in. Which eliminates jerky step-off, one of the biggest drawbacks of a dual-clutch gearbox.

Necessary liability becomes a boon, and for the driver, the Sport Hybrid is a regular car, no special treatment required. It even looks ordinary.

You could write this off as a pleasant anomaly, but the new Accord Hybrid is an equally out-of-the-box idea. The details and particulars would need another column to explain, but here are the high points: a Chevy Volt-like powertrain setup with a much smaller battery, a more efficient engine-generator, and Honda controls, the combined result of which yields a 50-mpg city fuel-economy rating. That's 15 better than the Volt manages in engine-on mode and better than every hybrid save two (smaller) Toyota Priuses.

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If you're still not sold on a system that turns a big front-driver from a boat into a handler, consider its future. The powertrain in the first NSX was originally designed for a front-drive car, just modified and stuck between driver and rear wheels. When the new NSX arrives next year, it will follow the same pattern, but with torque-vectoring motors up front and all-wheel drive, in the RLX mold. In other words, it will turn a machine that was bound to be interesting into something that has every chance of blowing your mind—the sports-car world's first experience with electric-motor, torque-vectoring all-wheel drive. It likely won't be the last.